The Night Manager

Jonathan Pine is working as the night manager of a Cairo hotel. He gets involved with a local woman who is the girlfriend of a local gangster. Through her relationship with the gangster she has acquired information linking illegal international arms sales with an English billionaire.

From the critics

Community Activity

Comment

This is the first thing I've seen Hugh Laurie in since House, M.D. and he does not disappoint as a ruthless arms dealer, with no trace of the cynical, yet sympathetic misanthrope, Dr. Gregory House. Tom Hiddleston is as cool as the proverbial cucumber playing the Iraq War veteran turned hotel manager, and ultimately, avenging angel. A strong supporting cast and a complex but believable story make this an outstanding piece of entertainment.

This was recommended by a co-worker and it was incredibly addictive. This is the uncensored version of a mini-series on British TV about the search for an international arms dealer. The main plot doesn't begin until after the first couple of episodes. Like most British dramas it takes time to build up the storylines and flesh out the characters. The acting is superb although Hugh Laurie seems to play a bit of a nefarious version of his famous House character. All in all a great mystery built upon a tragic love story.

Almost did not check this flick out because of the title, but decided to give it a watch because it was based on a novel by a great author. It was definitely not just about a night manager of a hotel. Good flick.

Based on a wonderful Le Carre novel and doing justice to the work. Excellent actors and a great expose of the way that governments are complicit in the arms trade and actively hinder their security services from capturing these illegal arms traders. Hugh Laurie was excellent and Tom Hiddleston made a surprisingly muscular hero.

Quotes

Why do you sit so far away?
-Out of respect, I suppose.
Is that why you came all the way here? To respect me? You have many different voices, Mr Pine. You say one thing and... that person touches me. Then that person is called away and somebody quite different takes his place. We have a changing of the guard. Are you like this with all your women?
-You are not one of my women, Miss Sophie.
So why are you here? I want one of your many selves to sleep with me tonight. You can choose which one.
===
There is another point of view on all this. Which is what? That arming certain key players whose mobile phone numbers we happen to have in our address book might be preferable to indulging a whole new bunch of religious lunatics about whom we know nothing.
-Oh, yeah... So instead of putting handcuffs on him, we can give him a seat in the House of Lords!
===
Why do you call him the worst man in the world?
-Because he sells destruction, pain and death. And he laughs.

All the great philanthropists of our time are businessmen. They're entrepreneurs, innovators. My save haven project for refugees, which we began in '98, is the true expression of my belief in a commitment to the wider world. Because my good fortune means nothing unless it also lifts up my fellow man.
===
'Across Egypt, millions were on the streets erupting in excitement. He'd gone. After 30 years, gone. Cars honked their horns, it was a moment like no other in their lives.' 'In Tahrir Square, the protestors were beside themselves. They'd done it. They'd won. They'd brought down President Mubarak.'
===
And we'll need the River files too. Red flags will fly.
-So bury the requests in a pile of slurry. Do a random sweep on all Brits living offshore. Throw River House off the scent. Make us look like a bunch of amateurs looking for a needle in a haystack.

Take all the things you own, clothes, house, car, and ask yourself what part of all that did not depend on commerce and the free of movement of capital. For the benefit of the hard of thinking in the room, I'll give you the answer. The answer is none. None! My Safe Haven project for refugees is not funded out of love, or a bleeding heart. I do it because it benefits me to have the communities in which I wish to operate sympathetic to my interests. And the truth, which no-one dares admit these days... is that only by freeing capital do you free the world.
===
I think you might be stringing us along. Hmmm? And if that's the case, when you're better, I will hood you, and hang you up by those lovely ankles until the truth falls out of you by gravity.

Now there's two philosophies on how to confront international arms smuggling. You can exploit or you can enforce. Now, I'm an enforcer, and I'll tell you why. You go down the exploitation path, this is what happens. You identify a bad guy, you watch him, get all kinds of dirt on him, and you approach him. And then what do you do? Well, then you recruit him. You recruit him to get to the next guy, then you watch him, and you recruit him, and so on, and so forth. And pretty soon the lines get blurred, your enemy becomes your friend, and hey... the devil has all the best lines, right?
===
Was that dull enough for you? Oh, are you kidding me? I never knew an American could sound so much like a total bloody loser.
===
What happened in Cairo... shames me to the bottom of my soul. I know you can't forgive the man who did that. The question is, what are you prepared to do about it?

Three generations of Eton or you're not on the map.
-I'm only one generation, Sandy. So what does that make me?
You're paying the bill, Dicky. Which means... you are the map.
===
How long have you been together?
-20 years, come November.
Wow! Congratulations.
-It's marriage, Jonathan. It's not a state of bliss.
Any children?
-First and last.
===
I want to put you inside his operation. I will give you a legend as thick as your arm. You will be in so deep, you'll worry that you'll never get out of it. There's not a scrap of you that won't get used, there's not an hour that will go by that you won't be scared. But you will nail him.
===
You are going to put on the performance of your life. There is half a psychopath lurking in there, Jonathan. I want you to find him and stick to him. Once you get down to Devon, you are the world's second worst man, first place already taken.

So, father killed in Belfast, no close relationship with mother, married once for six months, we can assume not a triumph. Two tours in Iraq, distinguished service. And on return, what? Despair, depression, and then five years as a night owl in the hotel business. What was that? Hibernation? Burying yourself alive? And then a sudden moment of madness. Thieving, narcotics... murder. This is bloody chaos, Jonathan. Do you even know who you are?
===
Me, I'm a free man. Free to think, free to work, free to climb a mountain or lie in bed all day eating peppermint creams without any bugger telling me how.
-Then I'm a free man.
Oh, that's the free part, the man part's a little different.

Everyone assumes that I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. It's balls. My father was an Oxfordshire auctioneer, taught me the price of everything, but the drive to create all of this, that comes from me and me alone.
===
I met a girl...in Devon.
-Didn't we all.

===
Now, house rules. No phones, no postcards to Devon dumplings. No messages in a bottle. The chief values privacy... as do we all. All the way down to the beach, as far as you can go, and it's on the right. Alternatively, fill your pockets with stones, walk into the sea... and keep going. Anything? No. ... Off every tree you may freely eat - maids, serving wenches, cooks, typists, masseuses, even the lady who comes to clip the canary's claws. But if you lay one hand on that precious fruit (Jed), then like the Belgians in the Congo, we'll chop it off. And I don't mean the hand.

Who are you? You come into our lives... ..disrupt our balance... ..everyone's attracted to you. Who are you? Are you Andrew Birch? Are you Thomas Quince? Are you Jonathan Pine? Tell me.
-I can't. How long do we have?
He said a while.
-Where's your room?
===
So you don't drink, and you don't screw. Not sure I can trust a man with no appetites.
===
Without me, you've got nothing. You don't have Roper in possession of chemical weapons, you can't arrest him for corporate fraud, his name's not connected to Trade Pass. You have no phone taps, no witnesses. His deal will go ahead, and you'll be powerless to stop it.

Aw. No joy? Must be a peculiar feeling, is it? All those VIP rooms, five-star hotels. You're now on the wrong side of the velvet rope.
-Do you feel quite discombobulated? I suppose you've been preparing this for a while. Practising in front of the mirror, have we?
===
Be good. You're a funny fish, Jonathan.
===
When a continent enters into chaos, that's when opportunities open up. The British knew it in China, the Yanks in South America. I'm doing the same here. We can train armies to fight in deserts, mountains, we can teach them anti-guerrilla tactics, how to deal with political insurgency. And for a small surcharge, we can even send in teams of our own to deal with specific targets.
===
War as spectator sport. We are emperors of Rome, Andrew. Blood and steel, the only elements that ever meant anything. ... UN takes a rather dim view of cluster munitions on the basis that, and I quote, "They pose an indiscriminate threat to the civilian population."

Where did you get this intelligence?
-A source close to TradePass and Richard Roper.
Can you be more specific?
-To do so would be to put lives at risk. No, I can't do that.
Mmm, this is a behind-closed-doors enquiry, Ms Burr. Names will be redacted from the records. So, why can't you tell us?
-You know why. You all know why.
===
Did you get me some of those curly slippers?
-No, I tried. Apparently, Egyptian men have tiny little feet.
Well, you know what they say? Tiny feet, tiny shoes.
===
This is the number. You must memorise it. And you press connect and it will start the party.
===
To the victor! And to the blind man... ..who cannot see the human bloody hand grenade in front of his bloody eyes.